I find that when I was “normal” (did what everyone else did), I found some ideas like what we are talking about to be outlandish. Like “no way I can do that”, or “That can’t make that much of a difference”. Understandably so. We create habits of doing and thinking that we think are good or ok because they are common. But look around. There are a lot of people who are not healthy, or could be doing better.
“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
So by definition, if you want to do better than average, you can’t do what average people do.
Anyway, let’s get back to talking about sleep.
Working out is good for you, right? No doubt. You have to get your heart rate up at least every other day for 30-40 minutes. And studies show that maintaining some muscle mass is important for so many reasons. But when should you workout – in the morning or at night?
When it comes to having good sleep, definitely in the morning. Why? Because working out doing strenuous exercise at night gets you all jacked up and warmed up, and you can’t get your heart rate down and go to sleep for some time afterwards. If you work out in the morning, you will go to bed earlier and sleep better.
I am one of those people who said “I hate getting up in the morning, so I don’t want to get up earlier to work out.” Yeah because I went to bed too late – maybe because I worked out late and ate late! You see, it’s a cycle. You have to go to bed earlier to make this work.
One power lifter said that he worked out at night for many years. When he started working out in the morning, everything changed, and he was sleeping much better.
A good day starts the night before when you go to bed.
Another thing that is important is having your bedroom dark. Recently, I got rid of this big digital clock that glowed with blue numbers from my nightstand. It matters. Dark is good for sleep! Again, that’s why you want to shut screens off early. Many are using red light bulbs in bedroom lamps for the wind-down time. I haven’t tried that yet.
Another thing is temperature. Cool is good for sleep. The sweet spot is 65 degrees F. The cool temperature will promote deeper sleep. You can regulate your temperature with the blanket covering a little more or a little less.
I’m not big into too much data, but if you have an Apple Watch you already have a sleep app on it. I wore mine to bed and got some basic information, including total sleep time, time awake, time in deep, core, or REM sleep, and what my heart rate was. If you can get your heart rate down that’s good. Mine touches 48 for the low most nights, but can go up to as high as 68 on an average night.
So, that’s some ideas to get better sleep. Most of the things you need to do to get better sleep are things you do while you are awake to prepare your body to sleep well.
Good luck with this and leave a comment!
I’m sure a lot of people will have all kinds of opinions on sleep timing but I feel like in construction the “early to bed early to rise” schedule is the best. It’s the same for farmers and probably any other truly physical work. It always surprises me when someone says they want to meet “first thing in the morning” and they actually mean 9-10am!
One of the things that legitimately messes people up is if they spend 4 years in college. Colleges rarely start any classes before 10am and I actually had some classes at 8pm! That’s a crazy schedule that took me some time to get over. I only went for two years but I have a brother who went four and he had much more intensive studies. My brother legitimately had health issues due to his college schedule. Yet another way in which colleges could improve…
Great advice Larry! Keep on keep’in on!
Great suggestions! I just turned my giant blue alarm clock upside down last night and I slept great.